Well, here you go, our last issue of 2006 and the Niagara Falls Reporter's 300th edition overall.
So don't break it, for godsakes!
In many respects, 2006 has been a fine year. For Mayor Vince Anello, the time finally came when he started acting as though there wasn't a federal grand jury seated in Buffalo hearing evidence that may or may not lead to his indictment on official corruption charges, and got back to simply being a bad mayor, much in the tradition of those who preceded him in recent years.
Good for him. He's now pretty much following the course set by Butch Quarcini and the goon squad at Laborers Local 91 prior to their indictments in May 2002. They acted as though nothing was going on as well, issuing threats and attempting to bully people, going to work every day and causing trouble
People still ask about that story and I tell them that covering the decline and fall of the Laborers here was about the most fun I've ever had in the newspaper business. It's not always as difficult as it seems and, after looking at the union trouble that seemed to occur during every major construction project here, and the fact that major construction projects were becoming fewer and farther between, it was a fairly simple progression to asking why.
While everyone in Niagara County knew these guys were beating contractors and other workers senseless at job sites, bombing people's houses and committing acts of vandalism on a grand scale, we wondered how come hardly anyone was ever arrested and, if they were arrested, why were they allowed to go free with a slap on the wrist after pleading to a reduced charge?
That led us to the Board of Elections, where records revealed Quarcini and his gang had greased the palms of just about every mayor, councilman, judge, school board member, county Legislator and state official who'd ever been elected to office here. Not only that, but a couple of the racketeers even managed to leverage this greasing into positions on the county Industrial Development Agency and the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission, where they could further influence what construction would or would not take place.
None of the other media seemed interested in covering the story, so we had the field pretty much to ourselves. It got so that the investigators were coming to the Reporter offices looking for information.
Those guys didn't look so tough this past year, as one by one they came before federal Judge Richard Arcara and took their medicine. I think the judge was as surprised by their stupidity as he was by their ruthlessness.
Which brings us back to Mayor Anello, who found himself in trouble after we reported he'd accepted $35,000 in under-the-table payments from Tuscarora developer "Smokin'" Joe Anderson and the sister of one of the principals in the golf dome fiasco.
Same thing. You got to wondering why both Anderson and the owners of Greater Niagara Sports were benefiting form no-bid deals that turned over millions of dollars' worth of public property with virtually no public discussion or oversight. Later, the mayor would waste the taxpayers' money defending the indefensible from lawsuits over some of the deals.
Again, one thing led to another, and the grand jury was seated. Lately, cynics have been spouting the "If they were going to indict him, they'd have done it already," line, something we heard on innumerable occasions about Butch and the boys prior to their indictments.
Last week, Anello unveiled a plan to level much of the neighborhood between Niagara Street and Pine Avenue to allow for the construction of "market value" homes, some costing as much as $150,000. The last time the market value of a home in the city of Niagara Falls was $150,000 was, I think, never, but not to worry, as the plan is contingent on casino revenues, the munificence of incoming governor Eliot Spitzer and the interest of the federal government, which is now pretty busy spending $2 billion a week blowing up Iraq.
But one wonders why Anello just didn't call his proposed project what it actually is, the "Let's Move the City's Poor Black Population Away From the Casino so White People Won't be as Frightened" plan.
Come to think of it, one doesn't wonder.
Next year, we'll either be covering the indictment or Anello's bid to become the first Niagara Falls mayor to win re-election in 16 years. With any luck at all, we'll get to cover both, and Staba and I can pretty much coast on the rising tide of ridiculous events and unbelievable developments.
City Administrator Daniel Bristol also had a great year in 2006, coming out of the closet, as it were, and refusing to continue living the lie that he resides in the city, as required by law. Talk about sticking it to the man!
He also took a part-time consulting job in the Town of Niagara, that oasis of governmental sanity in which one current and one former town supervisor were arrested this past year on charges of stealing political signs.
Over in Wheatfield, Tim Demler is desperately clicking his heels together and longing for a return to the Land of Oz as a means of getting the ugly, racist opposition of the townsfolk to a proposed church-sponsored low- and moderate-income housing development off the front pages of the local dailies.
And speaking of the local dailies, the Niagara Gazette -- whose parent company lost $1 million this past year when it pulled the plug on the Wayne Lowman-Tim Schmidt production of the Buffalo Current -- ends the year with paid circulation plunging even lower than the 18,000 daily copies claimed in October and a corresponding decline in advertising revenue.
The bad news for them (and good news for us) is that the Gazette will begin the new year as the topic of an investigative report on newspaper ethics, or the lack thereof, put out by one of the nation's top journalistic watchdog groups.
Stay tuned!
Finally, there is Lockport, where county Legislature Chairman Bill Ross, Majority Leader Malcolm Needler and Industrial Development Director Henry Sloma spent much of last year engineering $40 million worth of tax breaks for AES Somerset so that the company could build a second clean coal-burning power plant in Niagara County with the help of $1 billion in state incentives. To help out, Ross and Needler even threw a $50,000 bone to Tom Kucharski and his Buffalo Niagara Enterprise to promote new development here.
Kucharski stuck a knife in the county's back, the power plant went to Erie County, and Ross, Needler and Sloma will hopefully begin the new year facing an enraged citizenry fed up to here with the sort of "leadership" that appears to be taking us ever closer to financial ruination.
Anyway, from me, Bruce, Staba, Maggie and the Redhead, here's hoping your New Year will be the best ever, despite all of the above. There remains plenty to recommend this place, and we're looking forward to bringing it all to you in 2007.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | December 27 2006 |